I’d like to start by addressing the elephant in the room. Why am I talking about the a-spectrum? For the better part of a year and a half now I’ve personally identified as gray-asexual. It’s not something I talk about openly unless someone asks, but I think that for context, it is necessary for me to say it on this platform. I don’t believe that my sexuality is something that is common knowledge. I also don’t think that many people who know me even know that this is how I identify, because it truly does not change the person that I am, but for the purposes of this article, I need everyone to know how legitimate I am, speaking about this topic.
Starting with the obvious, let’s talk about the spectrum in general, as I’m sure many of you have very pressing questions about this which I hope to answer. The spectrum can be seen a few different ways, but I like to look at it from Aromantic to Asexual, with a bunch of little stops along the way. Aromantic is the first stop, to give you a glance of the other side and for me to pay homage to my beautiful A-spectrum counterparts. Aromantics feel no romantic connection to individuals, yet, sexual attraction is something they experience fully (Shout out to the loves of my life and their little aromantic hearts, y’all truly are the best friends I have–you know who you are). Moving on, and again, to clarify, I’m going to skip over many of the in between sexualities on the spectrum, for the not-so-great reason of getting to my point in a moderate amount of words. So, we come to “sexual,” for lack of a better term, which means you experience both romantic feelings and sexual feelings equally. Most of the population falls somewhere in this range, favoring the aromantic or asexual side a little more heavily in most cases, I mean, who really feels both of these exactly, perfectly equal? Someone definitely, but probably not you. On the asexual side, we pass stops such as cupiosexual, fraysexual, and demisexual (Among many others! Anyone who identifies as something else I didn’t forget you I promise and you are all valid!). Between Demisexual (only feeling sexual attraction once a strong connection/commitment has been formed) and full asexual, we find gray-asexual, or gray-A (me!), meaning that sexual attraction typically isn’t experienced, but depending on a very specific set of circumstances is still a possibility, though this is rare and almost never happens. Finally, at the end of the spectrum (which I would like to say is not a nice perfect straight line and in my mind probably looks a lot more like the green line of the Boston T system), we reach asexual, which is the complete opposite of the aromantic side we went over earlier in which asexuals do not feel sexually attracted to anyone. Now I skipped over a lot of sexualities, because if I went over them all, we would be here all day, but I do want to give a quick shout out to any sexualities I did skip because you are all valid, even if you didn’t pop up in this one article.
Moving on to the next important message I need to bring to the table. Not only do we exist, but we are V-A-L-I-D, valid. The amount of times people have told me or my friends, “it’s just a phase,” “you’ll get over it,” “you just haven’t met the right person yet.” NO. STOP THAT. I don’t need you to tell me that because it’s probably not true. I feel the way I feel and that’s the end of that. Could it change at some point in my life–maybe? But will it? No, probably not. So please don’t try to change my mind or tell me that I am not valid because the way I feel is valid. Sure maybe there are not many of us, but if I’m being honest, it took me a long time to even realize that I was asexual. Because we are taught from a young age (thanks media) that we are supposed to feel a certain way towards the opposite sex people who are trying to find their sexualities (rather than identify with something they are not) are unable to do so. Is a large portion of the population straight? Sure! But let’s stop teaching our children that they have to be straight. They don’t. Or they could be, but they might be on the A-spectrum. This is for them and only them to decide, so please stop trying to change their minds. I understand it might not be what you want to hear, but believe me, they don’t want to hear that they are invalid. Before I realized that the way I felt towards being intimate with men wasn’t the way other people felt, I would have never guessed that the lack of desire I felt was “normal.” But when I realized that this wasn’t the case, that people actually openly desired being intimate with other people, I had to look into it. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been happier than when I realized that I was ace, and being ace has cleared my head a lot over the course of the past year or so.
But even though I am happy with myself, doesn’t mean that other people understand how valid my feelings are. If you know someone on the A-spectrum, there are some things you just shouldn’t say to them. I mentioned them earlier, but again, I’d like to reiterate, don’t tell them they just haven’t met the right person yet. Even if it is the case, trust me they don’t want to hear it! No one wants to hear this no matter how they identify. The way we feel is valid, and it isn’t going to take finding “Mr./Mrs. Right” to change that. In fact, if we do find that person, they will hopefully love us for our sexuality, and not try to make us feel bad about it. If they don’t then they probably aren’t “Mr./Mrs. Right.”
When you say things like the above statement, or really any variation of it, it makes us feel like we are not valid, which is not the case at all. We do exist, so please, stop pretending like we do not. And, with all of that being said, go out and validate your local A-spectrum friends, because they are all just as beautiful and valid as any other person!